Valiant Comics
Valiant Comics is an American comic book publisher, the first incarnation of which was founded in 1989 by former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter along with lawyer and businessman Steven Massarsky. In 1994, the company was sold to Acclaim Entertainment. After Acclaim’s 2004 bankruptcy, the company’s assets were purchased as part of Valiant Entertainment by entrepreneurs Dinesh Shamdasani and Jason Kothari in 2005. In 2011, Valiant received a capital infusion from private investment company Cuneo & Company, LLC. Peter Cuneo and Gavin Cuneo joined the company and a relaunch was announced.
Valiant Entertainment launched its publishing division in 2012 as part of an initiative dubbed the "Summer of Valiant", winning Publisher of the Year and being nominated for Book of the Year at the Diamond Gem Awards. Valiant has set sales records, and was the most nominated publisher in comics at the 2014, 2015 and 2016 Harvey Awards, releasing the biggest-selling independent crossover event of the decade with "Book of Death" in 2015.
Valiant was sold to DMG Entertainment in 2018. In June 2023, Valiant Comics announced a licensing partnership with Alien Books, which would take over publishing Valiant's characters.
The company's properties have been adapted to other media, including video games, digital series, and collectible figures. The character Bloodshot was adapted into an eponymous 2020 feature film starring Vin Diesel.
Publication history
Voyager Communications
became acquainted with former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics Jim Shooter when he hired him to write the script for an unproduced live-action Spider-Man television series. As the two worked together on the show, Massarsky floated the idea of Shooter starting his own comic company with the two cementing a partnership between themselves and Winston Fowlkes who had a finance background. According to Shooter, part of what motivated the founding of Valiant was his disillusion with the state of Marvel at the time. Describing his experience at the company at the time, Shooter said:I think one of the things that went wrong at Marvel was that I got so far removed from all the creative stuff, I spent all my day upstairs arguing with the financial people and lawyers, trying to protect the creative people from being raped and devoured. At the end, I was walking around the place and I didn’t even know everybody’s name, because I delegated too much. Everybody hired their own assistants and then the assistants would get promoted and they would hire their own assistants. There were actually people working at Marvel who I didn’t even know. The people I hired were Louise Jones and Al Milgrom and Larry Hama and Denny O’Neil and Bob Hall- some people I thought came with a bunch of credentials. Toward the end there, as I said, I don’t know if those people had credentials or not, because I don’t know who they were.
In 1988, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics Jim Shooter, Steven J. Massarsky and a group of investors attempted to purchase Marvel Entertainment. They submitted the second-highest bid, with financier Ronald Perelman submitting the highest bid and acquiring Marvel. Shooter and Massarsky instead formed Voyager Communications in 1989 with significant venture capital financing from Triumph Capital. Valiant recruited numerous writers and artists from Marvel, including Barry Windsor-Smith and Bob Layton, and launched an interconnected line of superhero comics featuring a mixture of licensed characters and original creations. Through a handshake agreement with Richard A. Bernstein of Western Publishing, Shooter managed to secure the rights to characters from Dell and Gold Key Comics such as Magnus, Robot Fighter, Dr. Solar. and Turok: Son of Stone. In addition to the Western Publishing deal giving access to legacied comic book characters, Western also had deals with World Wrestling Federation and Nintendo which served as the basis for a children focused line of comics which managed to secure wider distribution beyond the direct market at Kmart, Woolco, Walmart and Toys "R" Us both as comics and in children's book format which achieved considerable success.
In 1991, Valiant released its first title, Magnus, Robot Fighter, cover-dated May 1991. Solar, Man of the Atom, cover-dated September 1991 followed as the next release. Both titles were licenses from Gold Key Comics. Rai became the third title published by Valiant and was distributed as a special insert in Magnus, Robot Fighter beginning with issue 5. Harbinger No. 1 was listed on the top ten list of Wizard magazine for a record eight consecutive months and was eventually named "Collectible of the Decade" while Rai No. 0 appeared on Wizard's top ten list for a new record nine consecutive months. In 1992, Valiant won the Best Publisher under 5% Market Share from comic distributor Diamond. The next year, Valiant won Best Publisher over 5% Market Share, becoming the first publisher outside of Marvel and DC to do so. In 1992, Valiant's Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for co-creating the Valiant Universe in a ceremony that also honored Stan Lee for co-creating the Marvel Universe. However, Shooter left Valiant by the end of 1992. According to Massarsky, "Jim had a different idea as to the direction of the company, and he was asked to leave."
Valiant also engaged in several comic book-marketing innovations common in the 1990s, such as issue zero "origin" issues, the gold logo program, coupons redeemable for original comic books, and chromium covers. Following the conclusion of the "Unity" crossover in September 1992, Valiant released Bloodshot, Ninjak, H.A.R.D. Corps, The Second Life of Dr. Mirage, and Timewalker, among other titles.
Acclaim Comics
In 1994, Voyager Communications was purchased by video game developer and publisher Acclaim Entertainment for $65 million. Acclaim Comics created a number of video games based on Valiant properties, such as Shadow Man, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M., and Iron Man and X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal, which featured Valiant's X-O Manowar alongside Marvel's Iron Man. In 2004, after losing a major sports video game license, Acclaim became financially insolvent and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.In 2005, the rights to Valiant/Acclaim's original characters such as Archer and Armstrong, Rai, and Quantum and Woody were auctioned off and bought by Valiant Entertainment, while the rights to the three licensed characters reverted to Classic Media, which was acquired by DreamWorks Animation SKG in July 2012. DreamWorks itself was bought by Universal Studios on August 22, 2016.
Valiant Entertainment
In 2005, a group of entrepreneurs led by Dinesh Shamdasani and Jason Kothari raised financing and acquired the rights to the Valiant Comics library from Acclaim Entertainment's estate, forming Valiant Entertainment. In 2007, Valiant hired former Valiant Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter to write new short stories that would accompany hardcover reprints of classic Valiant Universe stories. Two of the three collections were named among "The Ten Best Collected Editions" of their respective years of publications.. In 2011, Valiant announced that it had received a capital investment from Cuneo & Company. Former Marvel Comics CEO and Vice Chairman Peter Cuneo was named Valiant's Chairman and Gavin Cuneo became CFO and COO. Valiant then hired former Marvel editor Warren Simons as Executive Editor and former President of Wizard, Magazine, Fred Pierce, as Publisher.In 2012, Valiant Entertainment began publishing new monthly comic books based on the Valiant Comics universe of characters.
In an event dubbed The Summer of Valiant in 2012, Valiant Entertainment launched the Valiant Comics universe with four ongoing titles, X-O Manowar, Harbinger, Bloodshot and Archer & Armstrong, one launching each month for four months. X-O Manowar premiered May 2, 2012, with the creative team of writer Robert Venditti and artist Cary Nord. The first issue of X-O Manowar received over 42,000 preorders, making Valiant the largest new publisher launch in over a decade, and eventually sold through 4 full-priced printings and 3 additional reduced-priced printings. The release of X-O Manowar was followed by Harbinger, launched in June 2012 by writer Joshua Dysart and artist Khari Evans; Bloodshot, launched in July 2012 by writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Manuel Garcia; and Archer & Armstrong, launched in August 2012 by writer Fred Van Lente and artist Clayton Henry.
To coincide with the launch of publishing in 2012, Valiant introduced the Pullbox Program, which encourages readers to start a pull box subscription for the title being launched with their comics store to obtain an exclusive alternate cover version of the comic, and the QR Voice Variant, where the reader's smartphone, after scanning a QR code on the cover of the comic, plays a video of the figure's mouth, giving the impression that the figure has come to life and is talking to the reader.
Valiant Entertainment extended The Summer of Valiant 2012 event and added a fifth ongoing title with Shadowman in November 2012 by writer Justin Jordan and artist Patrick Zircher. The comic debuted as the number 1, non-Marvel and/or DC comic of the month. That month, Valiant announced it would exclusively distribute its digital comics through ComiXology.
In February 13, Valiant won Comic Book Publisher of the Year – Under 4% and was nominated for Best Comic Book of the Year – Over $3.00 X-O Manowar # 1 at the Diamond Gem Awards.
In January 2013, Valiant announced that Chief Creative Officer and co-founder Dinesh Shamdasani had been promoted to CEO & Chief Creative Officer and Jason Kothari was leaving management. That March, Valiant and Kamite Announced a partnership for Spanish language publishing in Mexico.
File:5.5.18ClaytonCrainSignsValiantByLuigiNovi2b.jpg|thumb|left|Artist Clayton Crain signing copies of Valiant titles whose covers he has illustrated during an appearance at Midtown Comics in Manhattan
In May 2013, Valiant announced The Summer of Valiant 2013, during which the company would launch two new ongoing titles, Quantum & Woody and Eternal Warrior, and publish a special Bloodshot zero issue. Quantum & Woody, written by James Asmus and drawn by Tom Fowler, launched in July 2013, and became the most-nominated title at the 2014 Harvey Awards. That November, Amazon announced a new license from Valiant Entertainment for its Kindle Worlds platform, Panini and Valiant announced a partnership for foreign language print and digital publishing in France, Italy, and other territories, and Valiant announced ComicCube Publishing as its launch partner in China.
Several of Valiant's launch titles reached their planned conclusions in 2014, with Harbinger, Bloodshot, and Archer & Armstrong all concluding. Valiant celebrated the milestones by publishing a 48-page anniversary issue for each series' twenty-fifth issue, and hinting at new directions for the characters. Ongoing series such as X-O Manowar, Unity, and Rai continued, and were coupled with limited series such as Harbinger: Omegas, Eternal Warrior: Days of Steel, The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage and The Delinquents. In December 2013, Valiant announced the 2014 "Armor Hunters" crossover storyline, consisting of a four-issue Armor Hunter mini-series and issues of XO-Manowar and Unity. In April 2014, Valiant announced several new partnerships with digital distributors, including Visionbooks, to distribute a form of animated Valiant comic books for digital devices. That August, Valiant joined Madefire digital comics on iOS and Android for day-and-date digital releases and digital collections, and also joined iVerse’s ComicsPlus with a complete digital comics library.
Following the conclusion of Armor Hunters, Valiant announced its Valiant Next initiative. Launching in December 2014 with the miniseries The Valiant, it continued through 2015 with the ongoing titles Ninjak, Imperium, Ivar, Timewalker and Bloodshot Reborn and the miniseries Divinity. For the summer of 2015, Valiant announced the event miniseries Book of Death, accompanied by one-shots Book of Death: The Fall of Bloodshot, Book of Death: The Fall of Ninjak, Book of Death: The Fall of Harbinger and Book of Death: The Fall of X-O Manowar and the miniseries Book of Death: Legends of the Geomancer. Book of Death was one of the best-reviewed comics of the year and the biggest selling independent crossover event of the decade. Spinning out from Book of Death, the ongoing series Wrath of the Eternal Warrior launched in November 2015.
In 2015, Valiant renewed its print distribution agreement with Diamond Distributors, making Diamond the worldwide distributor of Valiant's comics and graphic novels within comic book specialty and book markets worldwide.
In 2017, Valiant added ten new international publishing partnerships for China, India, South Korea, Pakistan and other comic book specialty and book markets worldwide.
In January 2016, Valiant announced at Valiant Summit 2016 that Valiant would spend 2016 focusing on expanding its universe of characters beyond its core titles, launching brand new characters in the Britannia and Savage miniseries; expanding Divinity in two sequels — Divinity II and Divinity III: Stalinverse; and elevating supporting characters from the Harbinger title in two new miniseries — Generation Zero and Faith. That same month, a four-issue Faith miniseries launched, garnering significant media interest, and was one of only a handful of series in the past decade to reach a fifth printing.
In July 2016, Valiant was nominated for 50 Harvey Awards, the most nominations for any publisher that year, including eight for Bloodshot Reborn.
In 2017, Valiant added ten new international publishing partnerships for China, India, South Korea, Pakistan and other international markets.